Rob
Costelloe wrote fiction as a youngster, and completed his first novel a few
years after college. But then the demands of family and career intervened, and
his writing was mostly business or technical. But then in 2005, he read an
Anita Shreve novel whose ending was so abruptly despairing that he felt outrage
on behalf of so many abused readers. The result was two books, Coinage of Commitment, which became a
National Indie Excellence Book Award finalist, and Pocket Piece Cameo, both published by Saga Books in the next three years.
Again he went off into nonfiction pursuits, but in 2012, he elected to rewrite
both titles for the simple reason that he could make them better stories for
his readers. Both titles have been republished digitally as second edition
stories, and both are available from Amazon.

Back Cover Blurb

Coinage of Commitment

A second Edition Love Story

Wayne and Nancy grow up on opposite
sides of the country, each certain they must have love better than what others
will settle for. Something stronger, something richer, something worth searching
for. During the turbulent nineteen-sixties, they meet while he is attending
blue-collar Drexel, and she is at neighboring, Ivy League Penn. Although
irresistibly drawn to each other, they must overcome obstacles posed by the
class and social differences that separate them, as well as opposition from
both families, and later, a twist of fate that will be the cruelest test of
all. Can they reach the emotional heights they seek? Can they overcome time's
downward pulling inertia? Coinage of Commitment is dedicated to
all who ever wondered about the altitude love might soar to.

Coinage of Commitment Excerpt

Setup: Late Friday
night, 1968, at Philadelphia’s 30th St. Subway Station. Wayne is
looking from the trolley station, where he stands, to the adjacent subway train
(El) platform.

As he watched
absently, the girl from Sullivan’s came down the El station steps opposite him.
She paused at the foot of the stairs, getting her bearings. Although adequate
lighting bathed the platform, most riders took stock of others in the vicinity
for safety’s sake. It was a natural precaution, instinctive for most, and
especially important this late at night. She saw him, signaled recognition by a
parting of her lips that was not quite a smile, then she lowered her gaze,
turned, and strolled slowly out of sight to the other side of the stairway.

Seeing her again
pricked him with an off-kilter joy, uplifting and refreshing, partly because
she recognized and acknowledged him, but also because she seemed so buoyantly
out of place down here, her bright beauty undefeated by the dank-smelling gloom
of the subway. He smiled, turned away, and sauntered to the south side of the
trolley platform. The minutes dragged, but no trolley car arrived. He began
mentally composing a theme paper for his International Politics course, the
only non-technical one he had that semester. Ideas came to him, prancing, and
he thought of getting a notebook from his bag.

“Police! Help! Help
me!” A woman’s screaming and it came from the El platform.

Thinking frantically
of the girl, he ran to the north edge of the platform and jumped the foot or so
that got him down onto the trolley tracks. A steel grate fence separated the
two transit systems, but it had seen better days. A section was ajar, just ten
feet to his left, and he swung it open enough to squeeze through.

Now things got
difficult. The El platform was too high and far to jump to. The train tracks
gleamed below him, the electrified rail closest, then the two steel tracks. He
saw only one way to get there and didn’t slow down to analyze the risk. He
threw his bag onto the opposite platform, then leaped forward, over the
electrified rail, and down into the square trench that ran a foot and a half
below and between the steel tracks. The platform loomed just above him, and the
smell of ozone was stronger this close to the electrified rail—the one he must
not fall back against. With his momentum still carrying forward from the jump,
he kept moving, aware his footing and balance must be perfect. He reached up
and grabbed the El platform edge, stepped up on the rail before him, then used
his grip on the edge to lever himself up and onto the platform, landing on his
right shoulder and side. Feeling no pain, he got to his feet and sprinted west
down the platform toward the woman’s screams.

As he ran, he recalled
what he had seen: the girl from Sullivan’s, a nondescript man, and three black
youths: teens with their heads wrapped in dark bandannas, signifying…he knew
not what. They were what fueled his urgency. Where was she? The commotion was
still ahead of him.

He ran at top speed
past the central vending area and spotted figures near the far steps. He could
see her blond mane, somewhat disheveled now, and she stood with her arm across
a shorter girl’s shoulder. The nondescript man ran up and joined them.

“He took my purse,”
the other girl wailed. “I can’t believe I was so careless to let him get my
purse that easily.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the
blond girl said, her arm still across the smaller girl’s shoulder in comfort.

“All my ID. A credit
card. And I just got my paycheck cashed today. How stupid can you get?”

Another woman came
down the steps and joined the group. As Wayne
approached and slowed, a balding, thirtyish-looking man passed him from behind,
joined the scene, said he had heard the commotion from above, and that a
companion had gone to the toll booths to get help. Then two of the black youths
he had seen earlier ran up from the west.

“He high-tailed it
onto the tracks,” said the shorter of the youths. “He’s got choice of Thirty-third Street
trolley or Thirty-fourth Street El station, so it looks like we kiss that one
good-bye. You know what I’m saying? The Fuzz’l never collar that dude now.”

As though on cue, a
police officer, complete with German Shepherd, came down the steps and assumed
authority. The third black youth also joined the crowd. Wayne held back, not seeing what he could
contribute by his late arrival. The blond girl had seen his running approach.
Or had she? Her gaze had flicked briefly in his direction, then back to her
charge. The tension eased with collective relief, and the officer started
questioning the stricken girl, unpacking a notebook as he spoke.

Wayne thought of how the blond girl continued
to be too distracted to notice him, and he felt bemused by the irony of his
situation. He had arrived about 7.2 seconds too late to be of any use, even to
the wrong damsel in distress.

His breathing slowed.
Still not seeing anything he could contribute, he turned and walked slowly in
the direction he had come. He needed to retrieve his bag from where he had
tossed it onto the platform. When he got there, he picked up the bag and looked
out over the gleaming tracks toward the trolley station. No way, he thought,
realizing with a shiver the danger he had risked. The price of another transit
token wasn’t nearly worth the peril. And then, as though to underscore the
irony, his trolley arrived and then quickly departed. Oh well, might as well
climb the stairs to the mid-level pay booths so he could get back down to the
trolley station. He took his sweet time since he probably had at least a
twenty-minute wait.

He approached the
corner of the stairway, trying to remember whether the trolleys discontinued
service during the wee hours. Suddenly the blond girl stood in front of him,
her eyes wide, her expression anxious.

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About Me

I do my best to blend fast-paced action with personal struggles and tender romance. Romantic suspense is my genre, and I write for Tirgearr Publishing in Ireland. Deadly Alliance has a release date of February 2016. I'm writing the sequel, Alliance of Liars.